Wednesday, 1 December 2010

I came back from Rotterdam on the ferry this morning. Left Hull docks at 7:30 am and eventually got back home tto Sheffield at 2:30 this afternoon having sat for a few hours on the M18 because of a jack-knifed wagon on the M1, as far as I can tell. I'm sure it was harrowing for the driver but surely if he had left enough space in front of him he would have had time to react and all the hours of disruption could all have been avoided. Why can't folk just drive more carefully in the snow? I had a number of cars tailgating me on the M62. It's madness. One chap in a sports car overtook me, then had to brake quickly when he hit deeper snow in the outside lane, causing the snow on his roof to cover his windscreen, so he had to stop completely while he got out and cleared it. Then he overtook me a scond time.

Unlike the halloween misadventure, I set off on this trip prepared with food, water, sleeping bag and warm clothes in the car. I also had a boot full of duty free wine and chocolate, which would have help the night pass, had it come to that - not that I'm suggesting I would have consumed alcohol on the Queens highway!

When the traffic eventually started to move again, I pulled off at junction 3 and stopped at the retail park just outside Doncaster. Everywhere was shut except for MacDonalds but xmas music was playing over the speakers and there were just three other people walking around. It was quite surreal. A bit like being in Second Life (that's a virtual world on the internet, for all you non-geeky types)

Anyway, this was all quite a bit of a contrast to yesterday afternoon, when I spent a couple of hours in the Mauritshuis, in the centre of The Hague and home to the Girl with a Pearl Earring. She's quite nice looking but must have dry skin as it's very cracked!

Mauritshuis, The Hague

The Girl with the Pearl - in need of some expensive skin care product for xmas. (This image scanned from a postcard I bought at Mauritshuis but probably subject to some copyright law)